Mr. Speaker, I want to speak this evening about the importation of toxic waste into Canada.
The House may recall that Canadians were stunned about a month ago when they learned that 90 tonnes of toxic waste from an American military base in Japan was bound for Canada. In fact, this shipment of PCBs was on a boat bound for Vancouver. From there, this waste was to be shipped across the country to northern Ontario where it was going to be concentrated and then shipped back across the country to Alberta to be burned. It is really quite remarkable that this material was going to be shipped back and forth across the country and it was not even produced in Canada.
Canadians were shocked to learn that their health was going to be put at risk to take care of someone else's toxic waste, in addition to the fact that tonnes of toxic waste of our own, PCBs for example, sit untreated at thousands of storage sites.
It is quite clear that Canadians do not want their country turned into someone else's toxic waste dump. Yet, we are importing this waste more quickly than we can take care of of the waste we produce ourselves. We should not be importing toxic waste.
The Americans have refused to import PCBs from other countries and I believe Canadians should be worthy of the same protection. The government is not taking the necessary measures to ensure that the importation of toxic wastes into Canada, whether it be PCBs or others, is legal.
There has been a new development on this front. Yesterday a report was released by the commissioner for the Environment and Sustainable Development. He had some startling things to say. I will quote briefly from the report. It says:
There is still a problem in detecting hazardous waste illegally entering or leaving Canada. The extent of possible damage to human health and the environment is unknown. As well, Canada does not know whether it is fulfilling its international obligations to prevent the illegal traffic of hazardous waste at the border. Enforcement continues to be a problem.
The environment commissioner is telling us that we do not know what is coming across our border. We are not looking for it, not finding it and not enforcing it. This is not the first time the commissioner has talked about this. A report in 1997 came to the same conclusions. Two years later he is looking at what improvements have been made. He has a report card and there are only a couple of check marks and many x s. He has failed the government on this one. He is saying that we do not know what is going on and we have to know.
Three years after the auditor general told the government it was not protecting Canadians from illegal shipments of toxic waste, he is telling us that we are still not doing so.
We have signed the Basel Convention, but we still refuse to get serious about ending the global trade in toxic waste. This government refuses to sign a sidebar to that agreement which would put an end to the deadly practice.
What has happened to date on the whole subject of toxic waste is really quite startling, it is quite frightening and it is just not good enough. The kind of crisis management we have seen on this issue is no substitute for good regulation and good administration. Canadians are not getting that today.
The report from the independent Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development proves that. It is not simply things that the opposition parties are saying. The government's own watchdog is blowing the whistle.
I could go into more detail about the government's sorry record on the environment, but I do not have the time to do that. This is simply one more case where Canadians are being let down when it comes to environmental and health protection.